Elefinches
Sunrise in the Kyran islands reveals a community of strange creatures beginning their day in the meadow. A large browser plucks small, sweet fruits from the tall branches of a tree with the aid of a pair of strange, dexterous tentacles upon its snout. Just behind, a pair of smaller grazers, exhibiting their own smaller version of the same appendages, pass by. These strange trunked birds, collectively known as elefinches, are the most prominent large herbivores across the archipelago that is the Kyran Islands. ~~~ The Kyran Islands are a relatively small archipelago, predominately made up of tropical rainforest and grassland and approximately the size New Zealand, that is situated in Serina's southern hemisphere during the late Thermocene (150 million years on), roughly midway between the south pole and the equator. Situated perfectly between the continents of South Anciska and Stehvlandea to the west and Wahlteria and Karii to the east, it exists on a tectonic plate entirely its own and has been isolated for more than 150 million years, since before life was introduced to Serina. The island has moved southward through the eons since; now near the south pole, it gradually migrated from a northern location in the Hypostecene to an equatorial one in the Cryocene, sparing it from significant climate change that affected mainland ecosystems. Though it has shrunk in size over the years through the process of erosion and recently been further by rising sea levels, never since the introduction of life have the islands ever come into contact with another landmass. Like Borea in the late Thermocene, most animal groups which arose on mainland continents have never touched foot on the Kyrans. Uniquely, however, is that unlike the recently recolonized Borea, the Kyran islands have had an unsurpassed 150 million years for life to evolve in such an isolated state. Most animals on the Kyrans can be found nowhere else; though there are more recent immigrants from distant mainlands, carried by freak storms or oceanic adaptations, here numerous bird lineages still exist which have evolved in-situ, from the earliest canary colonists, for one hundred and fifty million years in brilliant isolation from the rest of the world. There are again no vivas here, nor serestriders, nor any other terrestrial megafauna so familliar on the larger continents which were at one point connected. No - here in the Kyrans, life has produced forms arguably even stranger. ~~~ Elefinches Moving silently though the dark understories of the forests of the Kyrans as much as trotting conspicuously in great herds upon its savannahs are many species of large, flightless bird. From a distance, many might seem relatively ordinary. Like many birds which have evolved in island habitats rare in predators, they have lost their wings. Like the emu, the ostrich, or even the aardgoose across the ocean, they're largely plant-eaters, and they brood their eggs in the usual manner ancestral to Serina's birds and utilized by most on Earth as well - there are no live-bearing avians here. But a closer look at any one of these birds on the Kyran Islands will quickly reveal an attribute of these particular animals which is as wholly unique to they alone in the entire bird order just as the evolution of live-birth was in the vivas. Where on most other birds could be found a hard, keratinous bill or beak, on the elefinches is instead replaced by a fleshy snout; this alone isn't a wholly unique feature - though it has evolved only twice in birds - for it is similar to that of a serilope. Utterly unique to the elefinches alone, however, are an additional two mobile tentacle-like appendages, in fact extraordinary extensions of either nostril. These are utilized by the creature for myriad purposes; bringing food to the mouth, grooming, social display, even as a pair of snorkels for use underwater. Indeed, the paired trunks of the animals are certainly far more effective manipulators than the forearms which the group has long since lost, so much so that the elefinches seem not to miss their wings at all. Small and fast-running forms utilize their nasal appendages in place of their wings, spreading them to the side to aid in their balance whilst lumbering giants, twice as tall as a man and many times heavier, use them to pull down the branches of trees to secure succulent fruits and buds which would otherwise remain beyond their reach. = by Sheather888 = Category:Serina Category:Birds Category:Fandom